


this is not harmless (you are not breathing)

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters: Gold Rush!AU [44]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Abstract, Gen, Sauron holds grudges, Unreliable Narrator, like has there ever BEEN a more unreliable narrator?, like...immediately, title from Siken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 02:27:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18379061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: Waiting is a tiresome business, but it isn’t hell.Too few things are.





	this is not harmless (you are not breathing)

Find them: they are not even hiding.

_I find that the tender skin inside the arm takes a brand’s mark clearest. I find that flaying brings more fear than threats of fire. I find, I find, I find._

Waiting is a tiresome business, but it isn’t hell.

Too few things are.

 

Feanor has seven sons. Count them, as they sleep: the one who wants to copy his father’s sins (that is not only the eldest). Count the one who is too young for this (that is not only the pair of them, curled against each other like flightless chicks). Count the eldest, all red and gold and white—even without being peeled down to carcass and questions. Count him through every rumor. Seven men dead, or is it ten now? Is it eleven?

How many men does a man have to kill before he becomes a legend?

(Many, many more than that.)

 

Dog in the moonlight. Boy in the dog’s shadow. Shadows.

Boy with ragged knees and shining eyes, gun shaking in a hand that believes it isn’t really shaking, fear on him like skin on most everything else.

Pick a bone out of the carcass and it’s not a bone anymore, it’s a knife, and how many uses are there for a knife? That’s an edge, that’s the marrow, that’s a ribbon of blood and it didn’t come from the carcass.

Boy stepping forward, trying to be brave.

Boy, all alone.

_I am going to teach you something you do not want to know._

 

A shot—

(How many times may a man tempt fate before he can be punished?)

The eldest, the brightest, brighter than the moonlight. Hard to look at straight-on. Violence echoing in every inch of him, waiting to be dragged out like a scream. Waiting, waiting, waiting, hell is _so much more_ than waiting—

(Few things are.)

_I am waiting._

His hand, twisting, pulling. His voice, like the snap of the bullet he will not fire. Proud, too proud, there is only room for one lion, lions have too many teeth, _he_ has too many teeth. Look at him, look at him with wide eyes despite his leaping fire, and hate him more than anything.  

Someday he will be the one on his knees, someday he will be bleeding, someday his stripped body will lurch back from the caress of a blade, and the blade will follow.

Take away the light that hangs around him, take the pride, tear the lashes from eyes that will weep red, leave his mouth plum-swollen, his hands bent back.  

_I swallow a victory, and go limp._

(That’s a ribbon of shadow and it did not come from anywhere they know.)


End file.
